Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016
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This page was current as of the 2016 election.
- See also: Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton was the 2016 Democratic nominee for president of the United States. She conceded the race on November 9, 2016, to Donald Trump. She declared her candidacy on April 12, 2015, and officially received the nomination of the Democratic Party on July 26, 2016, at the Democratic National Convention.
Clinton had been on the national political stage since 1991 when her husband, then-Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton (D), launched his presidential campaign, eventually defeating sitting President George H.W. Bush (R) in the general election in November 1992. Clinton was a politically active first lady focused on children's welfare and women's issues. During Bill Clinton's first term in the White House, Hillary Clinton spearheaded an effort to establish universal healthcare coverage in the U.S. She also advocated for the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Adoption and Safe Families Act.
In 2000, Clinton won election to the U.S. Senate in New York, becoming the only first lady to win an elective office. She served on the Senate Armed Services Committee, worked to secure billions in emergency funds for New York in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and backed a resolution to authorize military force in Iraq in 2002. Clinton won a second term in the Senate in 2006 by a margin of 36 percentage points.
Clinton launched her first presidential campaign on January 20, 2007. In the early months of the Democratic primary, she led then-Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and John Edwards (S.C.) in national polls, but was narrowly defeated by Obama after key losses in states like Iowa and North Carolina. In her concession speech on June 8, 2008, Clinton noted the historic nature of her performance, "Although we were not able to shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it has 18 million cracks in it."
A month after Obama won the general election, he announced that Clinton would serve in his cabinet as secretary of state. While acting as the nation's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, Clinton used a private email server to conduct official state business, raising questions about her compliance with government regulations on record-keeping and security that have followed her throughout her second presidential run.
Clinton formally received the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on July 26, 2016, after defeating U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a closely contested primary. In doing so, she became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party in the United States.
Clinton on domestic affairs
Clinton generally took liberal position on social issues, supporting abortion rights, marriage equality, and the reclassification of marijuana from a Schedule I to Schedule II drug. She also supported immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship and President Obama’s executive orders on the DACA and DAPA programs. Clinton called for repealing gun industry liability protections, implementing comprehensive background checks, and closing the Charleston loophole. She diverted from the Democratic Party platform on capital punishment by supporting it in federal jurisdictions "for very limited purposes."
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Clinton on economic affairs and government regulations
Clinton stated that she would increase taxes on the top 1 percent of earners—those earning more than $732,000 a year—while largely leaving tax rates the same for taxpayers with smaller incomes. She also said that she would also eliminate tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas and reinvest revenue raised from changing the corporate tax code into projects that spur economic growth. Clinton supported the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau action to end unfair practices on Wall Street. She said that she would permit large banks to fail if there were another financial crisis and would impose a risk fee on big banks that engage in risky behavior. She opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
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Clinton on foreign affairs and national security
Clinton said she believed in "American exceptionalism" and advocated for the U.S. to act as a leader in world affairs. She supported the Iran nuclear deal but took a “distrust and verify” approach to its enforcement. Clinton also supported a "360-degree strategy" to defeat ISIS that is focused on identifying the network of people who fund ISIS, cutting off online recruitment, creating stricter screenings for visa applicants who have traveled to a country in Islamic State-controlled areas in the last five years, reauthorizing the use of military force against ISIS, and working with Muslim-American communities to combat homegrown radicalization. Clinton said her “greatest regret” was her 2002 vote to authorize military force in Iraq.
From 2009 to 2013, Clinton served as secretary of state. She implemented the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia," which sought to refocus diplomatic attention on East Asia and the Pacific, and the "reset" of U.S.-Russian relations. She supported military intervention in Libya, resulting in the deposition of Moammar Gadhafi. In 2012, four Americans were killed in the country during a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, leading to a congressional investigation of how the State Department and other executive actors handled the attack.
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Polls
| Clinton-Trump 2016 head-to-head presidential polls (September-October 2016) | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll |  Hillary Clinton |
 Donald Trump | Unsure or Other | Margin of Error | Sample Size | ||||||||||||||
| Quinnipiac October 17-18, 2016 | 50% | 44% | 6% | +/-3.1 | 1,007 | ||||||||||||||
| Economist/YouGov October 15-18, 2016 | 47% | 43% | 10% | +/-3.9 | 925 | ||||||||||||||
| Fox News October 15-17, 2016 | 49% | 42% | 9% | +/-3 | 912 | ||||||||||||||
| Bloomberg October 14-17, 2016 | 50% | 41% | 9% | +/-3.1 | 1,006 | ||||||||||||||
| Monmouth October 14-16, 2016 | 53% | 41% | 6% | +/-3.6 | 726 | ||||||||||||||
| CBS News October 12-16, 2016 | 51% | 40% | 9% | +/-3 | 1,189 | ||||||||||||||
| NBC News/SurveyMonkey October 10-16, 2016 | 51% | 43% | 6% | +/-1 | 24,804 | ||||||||||||||
| ABC News/Washington Post October 10-13, 2016 | 50% | 46% | 4% | +/-4 | 740 | ||||||||||||||
| NBC News/Wall St. Journal October 10-13, 2016 | 51% | 41% | 8% | +/-3.3 | 905 | ||||||||||||||
| Fox News October 10-12, 2016 | 49% | 41% | 10% | +/-3 | 917 | ||||||||||||||
| NBC News/Wall Street Journal October 8-10, 2016 | 50% | 40% | 10% | +/-3.5 | 806 | ||||||||||||||
| Reuters/Ipsos October 6-10, 2016 | 44% | 37% | 19% | +/-2.2 | 2,363 | ||||||||||||||
| PRRI/The Atlantic October 5-9, 2016 | 49% | 38% | 13% | +/-3.9 | 886 | ||||||||||||||
| NBC News/SurveyMonkey October 3-9, 2016 | 51% | 44% | 5% | +/-1 | 23,329 | ||||||||||||||
| Economist/YouGov October 7-8, 2016 | 48% | 43% | 9% | +/-4.2 | 971 | ||||||||||||||
| Quinnipiac October 5-6, 2016 | 50% | 44% | 6% | +/-3 | 1,064 | ||||||||||||||
| Fox News October 3-6, 2016 | 48% | 44% | 8% | +/-3 | 896 | ||||||||||||||
| Economist/YouGov October 1-October 3, 2016 | 48% | 43% | 9% | +/-3.9 | 911 | ||||||||||||||
| Reuters/Ipsos September 29-October 3, 2016 | 44% | 37% | 19% | +/-3.2 | 1,239 | ||||||||||||||
| CBS News September 28-October 2, 2016 | 49% | 43% | 8% | +/-4 | 1,217 | ||||||||||||||
| CNN/ORC September 28-October 2, 2016 | 51% | 45% | 4% | +/-3 | 1,213 | ||||||||||||||
| NBC News/SurveyMonkey September 26-October 2, 2016 | 50% | 44% | 6% | +/-1 | 26,925 | ||||||||||||||
| Fox News September 27-29, 2016 | 49% | 44% | 7% | +/-3 | 911 | ||||||||||||||
| Public Policy Polling September 27-28, 2016 | 49% | 45% | 6% | +/-3.2 | 933 | ||||||||||||||
| Reuters/Ipsos September 22-26, 2016 | 44% | 38% | 18% | +/-3.5 | 1,041 | ||||||||||||||
| Note: A "0%" finding means the candidate was not a part of the poll. The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org. | |||||||||||||||||||
Campaign advisors and staff
The staff and advisors for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign were a mixture of longtime Clinton advisors and newer staffers—like LaDavia Drane and Maya Harris—who came to the campaign after working on social justice issues. Although Clinton officially declared her candidacy on April 12, 2015, she already had a large pool of available staff and advisors from her long career in politics. Many high-profile positions in the campaign were filled with advisors who had worked for former President Bill Clinton (D). Pollster and chief strategist Joel Benenson did similar work in the Clinton administration, while John Podesta was Bill Clinton's chief of staff.
Clinton also pulled from her State Department and Senate staffs for her early campaign hires. Former body person and deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin began working with Clinton when she was first lady, while foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan worked with Clinton in the State Department and on Clinton's 2008 campaign.
Yet for all the staff members with deep ties to Clinton, the 2016 campaign staff was notable for its relative newcomers. In 2007, The Washington Post described her circle of advisors—known as "Hillaryland" since her days as first lady—as a "closely knit Praetorian Guard around Clinton that plots strategy, develops message and clamps down on leaks."[2] The 2016 campaign less comfortably fit the "Hillaryland" mold. The most notable addition was campaign manager Robby Mook, whose campaign approach was to "test everything, question assumptions and let data drive things."[3] The additions of Marlon Marshall and Jim Margolis, both of whom used similar campaigning techniques with Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, added to the newer feel of Clinton's 2016 run.
For more information about the Clinton campaign, visit Hillary Clinton presidential campaign key staff and advisors, 2016.
Recent news
This section links to a Google news search for the term Hillary + Clinton + 2016
See also
- Presidential election, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
- Gary Johnson presidential campaign, 2016
- Jill Stein presidential campaign, 2016
External links
Footnotes
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